Review and summary of Marathon Training - A Scientific Approach by Renato Canova

Photo of the book Marathon Training - A Scientific Approach by Renato Canova and Enrico Arcelli

How do the best marathon runners in the world train? While you might catch a workout or two on Instagram or hear rumors about epic training weeks on message boards, there’s precious little information on the systematic approaches that elite coaches use with top marathon runners–and even less information on the science that backs up these approaches for designing marathon training programs.

One exception to this general rule has been the Italian coach Renato Canova, arguably the greatest living running coach and the topic of several of my previous posts on Running Writings. Canova freely discusses his training philosophy and posts example workouts or even full training schedules for the athletes he has worked with, which include Olympic and World Championships medallists.

In 1999, Canova even co-authored a book on the science of marathon training—however, there’s a bit of a catch: this book was printed through the IAAF (now World Athletics), not a traditional publishing company or printing press. As a result, Canova’s book is extraordinarily rare. I had heard of this book probably a decade ago, but in the intervening years I couldn't find any substantive information on its contents. Until now.

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A scientific guide to treadmill training and workouts for runners

Stylized image of treadmills in a gym

Though many runners treat treadmills as a necessary evil, treadmill access is a must-have if you live anywhere that gets extreme cold or extreme heat and want to train seriously year-round. Being from Minnesota (and having coached many runners in the Midwest), I’ve had plenty of experience modifying workouts and training sessions for the treadmill. 

On top of that, I’ve just wrapped up a biomechanics study as a part of my PhD dissertation that involved 60 runners completing a treadmill run in a motion capture lab, so I have a lot of experience working with biomechanical data from treadmill running. 

When you’re doing treadmill workouts, you can’t always just translate your outdoor workouts 1:1 and expect everything to go well. There are several important physiological, biomechanical, and psychological aspects of treadmill running that differ from outdoor running. 

Moreover, I’ve found that a lot of runners have ideas about treadmill training that aren’t in alignment with the scientific research on treadmill running. So, this article is designed to refute some of these incorrect ideas, and provide some guidance on how to incorporate treadmill running, when necessary, into your own training. 

Just want to know the most important info before you hit the treadmill? Click the link below to go directly to my seven scientifically-supported best practices for treadmill training.

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Advanced versions of strides and accelerations for runners

The homestretch of a track at night

When runners ask online about ways to improve their running form or increase their footspeed, a common response is “add some strides.” It’s assumed or implicit in such a response that everyone knows what strides are and how to do them optimally.

As with many things in training, it’s worth spending some time to dig into what constitutes “doing strides,” and how we might incorporate them into training in a more thoughtful way. 

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Getting the cool-down right

Several years ago I wrote about getting the warm-up right, and I still believe that many runners neglect the warm-up to their own detriment. But after you work out, what about the cooldown (or, less commonly these days, a “warm-down”)? How long, how far, and how fast should a cooldown be? Getting to a place where we can answer these questions is going to require getting a framework in place where we understand why you should cool down in the first place.

Understanding the reasons for doing a cool-down after a workout

Like much of the accumulated lore of running, the common rationales for doing a cool-down at all contain a healthy mix of physiology, bro science, folk wisdom, and true coaching wisdom. Allegedly, the cooldown is supposed to gradually reduce your heart rate, pump “lactic acid” out of your muscles, and condition your legs to running while tired. Failing to cool down is again allegedly supposed to make you feel more sore the next day, and harm your recovery capabilities. Needless to say, each of these rationales has a hefty amount of myth alongside perhaps a kernel of truth.

Instead of trying to consider and analyze each of these claims in turn, I think it’s better to break the question of “why do a cooldown” into smaller parts: who is doing the cooldown, what workout does it follow, and what training goals are we trying to accomplish, both in this workout and in the longer-term training plan.

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How much easier is running on an AlterG? Developing equal-intensity curves for anti-gravity treadmill running

Have you ever run on an AlterG? Once firmly in the realm of space-age gadgetry only available to professional athletes, AlterG anti-gravity treadmills seem to be cropping up everywhere nowadays. College athletic departments, physical therapy offices, and even the occasional high school are purchasing AlterGs for their widely lauded ability to allow runners and other ... Read more

Brief Thoughts: Long easy runs in marathon training

The long run is a central piece of marathon training for everyone from recreational marathoners all the way up to national-level competitors.  There are a lot of reasons why distance runners, and marathoners in particular, do long runs; these include increasing mitochondrial and capillary density, improving leg strength and resilience to the pounding of a ... Read more

Notes on Randall Wilber's "Altitude Training and Athletic Performance" for runners

If you are interested in altitude training, Randall Wilber’s book “Altitude Training and Athletic Performance” is a fantastic read. I apologize for the lack of posts recently, but I’m recovering from arthroscopic hip surgery last week and am not up for doing a whole lot of sitting (in fact, I’m typing this out standing at ... Read more

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